Project Diamond (Jacob Lansing Series Book 1)

by J. W. Bouchard

  These were followed by drills and a squat, low-profile vehicle called a borer that’s entire front end looked like a medieval torture device. Perkins said it could chew through solid rock.

  I asked Perkins how he knew so much about mining operations.

  “You pick stuff up along the way,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.

  Over the course of another hour, two more ships arrived, these containing mostly construction materials that would be used to construct the underground structures after everything was dug out. Perkins said they would be using a combination of underground mining and open-pit mining to excavate the diamond. “Just to hedge their bets.”

  The man paid attention to detail. He had listened to all the educational materials on our training headsets, including the really boring stuff that discussed how the mining operation would work. I hadn’t bothered. Even the knowledge that I would be learning the information in my sleep hadn’t been sufficient motivation.

  By 2300 hours all the equipment had arrived and had been dispersed across the perimeter. The last equipment ship departed and Hayes’s voice came over our coms saying, “All right, that’s it you two. Report to the carrier ship. We’re bringing you up.”

  We boarded the carrier and buckled in. We didn’t speak as the ship took off and headed back to the Astraeus. I thought about thanking Perkins again, but thought it might be overkill. I didn’t want to sound like I was kissing ass.

  After we had docked safely, Hayes was waiting for us on the other side of the airlock.

  “Good work. Now get some sleep. We’re waking the remaining crew in less than six hours.”

  I wasn’t about to argue. I followed Perkins down the corridor, my stomach giving off slight hunger pangs as we passed the cafeteria. I wanted to eat, but needed sleep more. I wanted to be awake when they woke the rest of the crew from stasis. With any luck, I could be there when Lisa was brought out of her slumber.

  Before Perkins entered his room, he paused in the doorway and said, “Good work, kid.”

  I smiled to myself. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and I hated myself a little for it. I had to remind myself again why I was there.

  CHAPTER 11

  I managed to get four hours of sleep. I had put on my headset and set it to the mining and excavations training before drifting off. I told myself it was for my own benefit, but knew that in reality it was because I wanted Perkins to respect me. I wanted to believe that I didn’t care what other people thought, but was beginning to wonder about that.

  As I opened my eyes, I heard the sound of the door whooshing open and Harper saying, “Rise and shine, partner.”

  I hadn’t even heard him leave.

  “What time is it?”

  “Four in the morning.”

  “Shit. What did I miss?”

  Harper looked happier than usual.

  “They already pulled the roughnecks out of stasis. They’re going to send them down within the next two hours to commence mining operations. I’m going down with them.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Not really. Perkins and I are tag-teaming the operations zone. I think they’ve got Flynn and Mayweather pulling rover duty, and Jin standing watch at the carrier ship.”

  If Hayes was sticking to his original schedule, that meant Yuri and I would be covering the area outside the perimeter.

  “So I’m doing foot patrol outside the operations zone?”

  Harper shook his head. “Kind of. I guess they woke that guy Bertrand from stasis since he’s the Chief Science Officer. Hayes explained the setup, but Bertrand wasn’t having any of it. The way I heard it, he wanted his people on the ground ASAP. Don’t ask me why. Plenty of time for expeditions. I think Hayes could have shut him down, but for some reason he didn’t.”

  That was easy. Hayes didn’t want to cause a rift between security and the rest of the crew. He had told us his take on that early on, and apparently he was the type that practiced what he preached. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Hayes could have told Bertrand to sit on his hands for a day or two until operations were in full swing, but he probably weighed doing that against the alternative, which was letting Betrand have his way. What harm would it do really? It meant an additional security detail, but Hayes had wanted a team covering the area outside the perimeter anyway.

  “You got lucky again,” Harper said.

  “How do you figure?”

  “You get to explore the planet, man. Okay, so maybe the scientists are doing the actual exploring, but you’ll be there, and that’s the next best thing.”

  I thought this might get Harper started on one of his rants about how Hayes was playing favorites again, but if he was thinking along those lines he didn’t mention it. He seemed happy just to be touching down on 55 Cancri e for the first time.

  “Is the science team already out of stasis?”

  “They’re getting them up now. Drop is in less than two hours.”

  I rolled out of bed and hustled to get my uniform on. I grabbed my zip-tie cuffs, stun baton, a can of restraint foam (although I wasn’t sure how well it would function in a lower gravity environment), and headed out the door. Harper was hot on my heels.

  “Why are you in such a rush? We’ve still got a couple of hours.”

  “Yeah, but I want to be there when they get the science crew out of stasis.”

  “Why would…oh, wait a minute,” Harper said. “That’s right, you’ve got a crush on that Asian girl. The geologist.”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “Word gets around. The ship isn’t that big. It’s like living in a small town. Everybody knows everything.”

  “Well, the town got it wrong. I don’t have a crush.”

  “Whatever you say, Lansing. You’ve got your own B story going on.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what they call it in the movies. When one of the heroes has a love interest.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Hey, man, I’m not passing judgment.” Harper was walking fast to keep pace with me. “It’s actually sort of a relief. One less competitor vying for Mayweather’s affection, if you know what I mean.”

  We reached the stasis room. I peeked through the window in the door and could see that most of the science crew were already out of their pods, and even through the mostly soundproof door I could hear them retch as they expelled fluid from their lungs. I spotted Lisa on the far side of the room, one pod down from Thomas.

  I was about to open the door when Harper said, “Hold up.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going in there are you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Think about it, man. Don’t get me wrong, even puking her guts out she looks hot, but do you really want to see her like that?”

  “I don’t care how she looks.”

  “No,” Harper said, “but she might. Would you have wanted her to walk in on you right when you were coming out of stasis? See you blowing chunks and walking around like you had a stick shoved up your ass?”

  Harper had a point. Normally, I would have taken any advice he had to give with a grain of salt, but this time I thought he might just have it right.

  “Understanding me now?”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s just chill out and stop by the cafeteria for a bite to eat. Give her some time to get her bearings. You’re on the expedition security detail. Chances are she’ll be in that group. You can read her love poems then.”

  I followed Harper as he led us toward the cafeteria. I couldn’t believe I was taking love advice from a guy who had gleaned most of his life experience from watching old movies.

  “The answer’s about once in a million,” Harper said.

  “What’s that?”

  Harper smiled and
said, “The number of times I get something right.”

  By 0600, we were suited up and buckled into our seats on one of the carrier ships, descending toward the rocky terrain of 55 Cancri e. Once we had cut through the clouds, I could see the operations zone below us. It was hard to believe so much had been accomplished in a scant six hours. The mining equipment was in full gear. A massive crater had already been carved out of the rock, a deep pit that led into absolute darkness.

  Harper had been right. Lisa was among the scientists going on the first expedition. I had passed her and Thomas in the corridor as Harper and I were making our way to the docking bay. It had been a quick exchange, and she was still getting over the effects of prolonged hypersleep, but I had spoken to her long enough to find out that both she and Thomas would be on one of the ships heading down within the next few hours.

  Seven of us from the security team were on our way down.

  We shared the carrier ship with the mining team, a bunch of haggard-looking roughnecks that didn’t seem the least bit excited. I couldn’t blame them. Despite having an arsenal of remote-controlled equipment, it was still grueling work. A good chunk of them would be living and breathing 55 Cancri e for however long it took to strip the planet of most of its valuables. Or at least until they hit the Astraeus’s payload capacity. Most of that time would be spent below surface. There were even specialized housing vehicles equipped with mobile generators that would allow them to sleep underground rather than being shuttled back and forth from the planet to the ship every few hours. All in the name of efficiency and saving the company money.

  Flynn’s voice came over our coms. “Hey Jin, you don’t look excited. Afraid the Captain is making time with that hot little navigator of yours?”

  Jin scowled. The rest of us laughed.

  “Why don’t ya invite your girl to Finnigan’s. I’ll bring Mayweather here with me. It can be a double date.” Flynn wore a shit-eating grin behind his helmet’s faceplate.

  Gloria rolled her eyes and said, “As if.”

  The team of roughnecks remained indifferent. They hadn’t caught the exchange. Their coms were tuned to a different frequency than ours. I had my doubts that they would have found it humorous even if they had been privy to the conversation.

  “Project Diamond,” Flynn drawled. “It’s one big soap opera in space.”

  “Reminds me of Mars One,” Harper said. “That turned out to be a real disaster.”

  Harper was talking about the Mars One mission that had gotten coverage between 2014 and 2028 when Bas Lansdorp had turned the first mission to Mars into a reality-based competition. We all knew how that had turned out. I wasn’t anxious for a repeat. I reminded myself that that had been over a hundred years ago and that we’d come a long way since that televised train wreck.

  Harper said, “He’s kind of right though. I know they always talk about survival instinct and all that, but a basic human function is a penchant for self-destruction. You take that into account along with the fact that nobody likes being alone and, well, it does become a bad soap opera after a while.”

  We drifted down to the surface, the engines firing on and off as we slowed. There was a light thump as we touched down.

  The door folded down, allowing in faint blue light. This was twilight on 55 Cancri e. It was better than when Perkins and I had come down earlier, but our suit lights still helped.

  We piled out of the ship. The roughnecks unloaded, and we followed them to a small metal hut that served as the mining operation’s topside checkpoint. Jin stayed behind with the carrier ship. I didn’t envy him. It had to be the most tedious of the security details. A guy could only stare at rocks for so long.

  Flynn and Gloria moved off to one of the rovers and a few minutes later the engine came to life and the bright headlights flicked on. I watched them drive off, a little envious that Flynn was pulling a shift with Gloria. Perkins and Harper proceeded to the mining operation’s topside shack. Another boring detail, I thought.

  That left Yuri and I.

  “What should we do?” I asked, shouting over the rumble of machinery. I forgot that our voices came over via our suit’s built-in coms, making it unnecessary to yell.

  In addition to the pit in the center of the operations zone, a ladder was being mounted in a shaft that had been dug by one of the excavators.

  “Vait for dee next sheep,” he said. “It should not be long.”

  “There’s a lot of waiting around involved.”

  “Da,” Yuri said.

  He didn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk. So we waited. I spent my time kicking at the dirt with my boot, thinking I’d get lucky and uncover a diamond eventually. Maybe find myself a souvenir to take home. Protocol prevented us from keeping any diamonds we found for ourselves, but I didn’t see how it would hurt given that the planet was full of them.

  An hour ticked by. I was tired of standing.

  “Jesus this is boring,” I said.

  Yuri didn’t say anything at first. Instead, he raised his arm close to my face and tapped at the small digital screen implanted on the forearm of his suit. It listed basic bio stats: heart rate, O2 levels, blood pressure, body temp. I was confused at first, but then I realized it also displayed the current channel of his com, which was now on a different frequency from the one I was on. I nodded and shifted to his frequency.

  “Hear me?”

  “Da. I don’t like every von listening een.”

  “Yeah, but what if Hayes needs to talk to us?”

  “They can see everything back on thee ship,” Yuri said. “Remote monitoring. He can see the frequency we’re using.”

  “So they could still listen in?”

  “But they probably won’t. If I vas Hayes, I vould stay on thee main security channel.”

  “I was saying this is boring.”

  “I would agree with you.” Only it came out as “I vould agree veeth you.”

  I wondered if Yuri was a better conversationalist when he was speaking in his native tongue. I almost would have preferred talking to Harper. Almost.

  “I was just thinking to myself that if I happened to stumble upon a diamond, I might keep it as a souvenir. I know it would be breaking protocol, but…”

  I was talking too much. Trying to fill the void. But the boredom of standing around doing nothing was maddening.

  “You think anybody would say anything?”

  “I think they wouldn’t leave you behind,” Yuri said. “If you got caught, you could tell them it is a hazard bonus.”

  “Think they’d go for it?”

  “I think Americans talk too much.”

  That effectively ended the conversation. I don’t think he was trying to be rude. Maybe he was one of those guys that didn’t like to talk much. Or maybe he was focused internally, distracted by the thoughts in his own head. I switched back to the general com channel and made a mental note to remember that my companion was a man of few words.

  Finally, lights appeared in the sky as another carrier ship descended from the clouds and landed next to its twin just outside the perimeter. Yuri and I approached it as the door folded open and a group of six people came down the platform wearing durable plastic backpacks on their backs. When we were closer, I recognized both Lisa and Thomas, and assumed the man leading the way was Daryl Bertrand. I hadn’t met the other three.

  “Hello Jake,” Lisa said after she recognized me.

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “The sleep was pleasant,” she said. “I think. I don’t remember much of it. It’s the waking up that is the hard part.”

  “It does throw you for a loop.”

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “I guess Yuri and I are your private escorts today.”

  “Wonderful,” she said.

  Bertrand stepped forward and said, �
��You’re our security detail then?”

  “Yep.”

  “All right. I’d like to get started. We’re confined to six hour increments, meaning time is of the essence.”

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  Yuri fell in alongside Bertrand. The three team members in the group I didn’t know introduced themselves as we walked.

  Samuel Tang, biologist.

  Elizabeth Packard, climatologist.

  And Peter Davidson, xenoarchaeologist.

  “Xenoarchaeologist?” I asked.

  “The study of past alien life,” Davidson said. It was hard to gauge much about the man because he was wearing his spacesuit, but he was taller than me and had a slender build.

  “Think you’ll find anything?”

  He shrugged. “I hope so.”

  We headed toward the mountainous ridge in the distance. Secretly, I was elated. I had wanted to explore the area since I’d first noticed it.

  Lisa, Thomas and I fell back, trailing behind the others several paces and switching frequencies so that our conversation was private from the others.

  “I guess your interstellar subway system worked,” I said to Thomas.

  “We’re here,” Thomas said. “It would have been nice if they had done us the courtesy of waking us beforehand. I would have liked to have seen it.”

  “I can live with the mystery,” Lisa said.

  “I still don’t understand the need for secrecy. What’s the big deal?”

  Thomas said, “Can you imagine if such a technology became common knowledge? I won’t even get into the potential disturbance that would occur in society if everyone knew there was an intelligence greater than our own that exists.”

  “Or existed.”

  “Especially that at some point they had had contact with Earth. At least if we assume that they meant for us to discover the anomaly, which I believe they must have, given the point in time that it became active and allowed us to notice it. It could have been there for thousands of years and they could have activated it at anytime. During the Jurassic Period, for instance. It wouldn’t have gained any attention from the dinosaurs. Even a hundred years ago it might have gone unnoticed. The real reason they’re keeping it a secret, I suspect, is that they don’t want anyone else using it. It was Sarver’s discovery, and they probably want to keep it to themselves, for their own purposes. It puts them light years ahead of the competition.”